Do all differences affect a couple’s relationship

Last week we talked about grief and the family and this week we talk about how differences can affect a couple’s relationship.

Culture is a major factor that transforms passionate love into romantic love. Cultural values and traditional behaviors influence the expressions and experiences of love and transfer passionate love - primarily based on a sexual attraction - into romantic love.

Cross-cultural issues faced by couples include loss of identity, conflicts over differences in fundamental beliefs, clashes in parenting tactics, struggles with unsupportive families and different interpretations of an event relating to some aspect of differing cultures.
For example, an individual's perception of sexuality and sexual orientation can be influenced by the religious and political background of their parents and the local community. Significantly, culture can also influence an individual's perception and expectations regarding marriage and family.

Moreover, cultural views bring about racial differences which deteriorate the relationship between diverse races. For example, some cultures view themselves as superior to others. Essentially, the relationship between these two cultures deteriorates due to such these views.

Language misunderstanding

People speaking the same language can have difficulty understanding each other even if they are from different regions of the same country. Dialectical and accent differences, the use of slang and regional colloquialisms can create numerous problems that may lead to misunderstanding and gaps in communication.

If your partner understands some of your language but not a ton of it, learning to simplify your sentences goes an incredibly long way toward effective communication.

Let's face it: you need to be fairly advanced in English to understand a wordy sentence like "Let's take a drive out to the park this morning and then in the afternoon we will go grocery shopping and then we will drive back home and cook a delicious dinner together."

If, however, you simplify that to "Let's go to the park, then buy food, then cook dinner," your partner is far more likely to grasp its meaning. More importantly, they'll appreciate you respecting them enough to alter the way you speak so they more readily understand you.

A good relationship is all about communication. If a language barrier makes it hard to effectively communicate, you need to find a way to do so. Any combination of the above solutions will equal great communication, and therefore a great relationship!

Jealousy: flattering or insulting

In general, being jealous and possessive are traits both men and women share. However, how your jealousy is interpreted can depend on how it is viewed culturally.

For example, in some cultures a girl gets angry and worked up about a girl smiling at her boyfriend from a distance. It is considered protective behaviour and is appreciated by some guys, while for others it can be considered suffocating and the traits of an overly attached girlfriend.

Similarly, in the Middle East culture if a guy expresses his jealousy to a girl, it would be considered an indication of him being caring while it may be considered in other cultures as controlling and insecure. So, depending on which side of the coin you’re on, we could either be jealous or caring.

Food

I was born in Kurdistan/Iraq and grew up eating "Middle Eastern" food, which in Kurdistan is really based on the vegetable of the time of the season, and meat is essential. 

I lived in Guernsey /Chanel Island, and I soon realised I could not survive eating only English food for every meal, every day, even though I was living on Chanel Island. My partner, similarly, could not survive eating only Middle Eastern food for every meal either - we had to find a compromise. Depending on where you live, you may not get to eat your old familiar foods very often. Sometimes even buying the ingredients you need to cook something yourself is impossible or prohibitively expensive. Missing out on all your favourite foods for months on end can have a serious impact on your happiness.

Also, the act of eating itself is ripe with cultural behaviours – (table manner) no elbows on the table? How about making noise while you eat or eating with your mouth open? Sharing dishes together or each person being given their own plate of food?

House Chores

In my culture, if anyone admires women for their qualifications and level of high education they achieved, as well as career goals – and may even brag about them to everyone in the family – they might eventually expect you to be more of a homemaker than a breadwinner. Confusing? 

I had to do lots of changing and re-learn my new identity.  

With my partner, we learned soon to express what chores we can do and be good at and which ones we don’t like. For example, I hate washing dishes, my partner is very bad at cooking. I didn’t like booking holidays; my partner didn’t want to deal with car issues such as MOT or take it to the garage. 

It would have been an issue if both of us acted based on culturally defined gender roles, which can be mistaken for being sexist or liberal, rather than being a little open-minded about personal preferences or perspectives. 

The difference between a cultural influence and a personal behaviour is that cultural influence is easier to change. It is natural to change, and cultural influence does not define our core personality but merely its outfit. And because it is natural to change and adapt, the longer anyone stays in different cultures other than their own the more they are provoked to view things differently.

Most people who travel or live in a place with a different culture than their own come back with slightly or completely changed views since the more we observe a certain behaviour that is accepted in a society, the more we begin to accept its premise and try looking at things through this different perspective.

In an interracial relationship, couples are likely to experience more issues and misunderstandings if they don’t respect each other’s cultural views and compromise by adapting. The issues might be an eye opener to a different view and offer a unique learning opportunity about other cultures.

If this blog has helped you, or you’d like to know more about how I can help you with your own relationship differences, or shared life goals, please send me a message and we can book an initial session.